Harnessing advances in Artificial Intelligence to create global movement on most pressing issue of our timeKatowice, Poland, 3 December

The renowned broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has announced the United Nations’ launch of a new campaign enabling individuals the world over to unite in actions to battle climate change.

In an address to the opening session of United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, Sir David Attenborough urged everyone to use the UN’s new ActNow.bot, designed to give people the power and knowledge to take personal action against climate change directly on the Facebook Messenger Platform.

Speaking for “The People’s Seat” initiative, Sir David Attenborough called it the result of new activism shaped by people from around the world and collected through social media.

“In the last two weeks,” he said, “the world’s people have taken part in creating this address, answering polls, creating videos and voicing their opinions.”

“They want you – the decision makers – to act now,” the British broadcaster said, addressing the politicians and officials assembled for two weeks in this Polish mining town to negotiate next steps in monitoring and mitigating climate change.

Recent arctic air masses have in the last few days brought record-cold temperatures and frigid winds to the Northeast of the United States. Driver for such winter weather extremes is often the stratospheric polar vortex, a band fast-moving winds 30 kilometers above the ground.

Without any inside information, and with only the small amount of information publicly available, the following is a personal speculation about the legal context of the UK/EU agreement that is currently being negotiated.

(Disclaimer. This is the most complicated legal situation that I have come across in sixty years of professional involvement with the law. Difficult aspects of three separate legal orders – International Law, EU law, national legal systems – have to be reconciled in obscure circumstances. Speculation may contain errors.)

With a new study highlighting the impact of a warming Arctic and increased air pollution from burning fossil fuels, it is now clear that immediate action is required to avoid the existential threat from increased and persistent weather extremes.

The IPCC, in its' recent report, stated that the world needs to take "unprecedented" steps on energy, transportation, and agriculture to avoid the worst effects of global warming. But behind the small print of Chapter 2 of the IPCC report is a very worrying picture. Dr. Hugh Hunt reports:

Beyond 1.5ºC will be catastrophic but how robust is the prescribed pathway?

In this short exchange between Anthony Hobley (CEO Carbon Tracker) and Professor Michael Mann, filmed in the Arctic, they discuss the how the extreme global climate events of 2018 are connected to the amplified warming that is currently taking place in the Arctic.

Addressing a wine industry on the frontline of climate change, Former President Obama said: “We are speeding our car towards the cliff at a very fast rate”. The audience and former president were invited to the launch of this new initiative by 326yr old port company CEO, Adrian Bridge, who is calling for solutions, saying “what we need to do is stop talking and start doing!” Nick Breeze reports.

A three day hearing at the High Court is in process that will decide whether an injunction be granted, effectively preventing any campaigning that might negatively impact the economic interests of UKOG and their associated companies.

The Climate Change Act 10 years on: does it matter? Is it fit for purpose? Are our politicians fit for purpose? Chris Rapley speaks candidly about our preparedness for an ever-rising tide of climate impacts that are already having a disastrous effect on nearly all regions of the world.

Sir David King stepped down from being the UK's top science advisor earlier this year, serving under Prime Ministers: Blair, Brown, Cameron and May. Now he is pushing for a global climate restoration agenda to help ward of ecological disaster. Read / watch the interview with Nick Breeze.

Written by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC)Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC)

Published: 07 February 201807 February 2018

While less new coal-fired power plants are now being built in China and India, the planned expansion in the use of coal in fast-growing emerging economies, such as Turkey, Indonesia, and Vietnam, will in part cancel out the reduction. Only if the countries of the world actively counteract this trend, they can achieve the climate goals agreed in the Paris Agreement. These are the results of the study “Reports of coal’s terminal decline may be exaggerated,” authored by researchers from the Potsdam Institute on Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC), published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.